


5 Times Gerard Met The Doctor

by dancinbutterfly



Category: Bandom, Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), My Chemical Romance
Genre: 5 Things, Aliens, Bandom - Freeform, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Ridiculous, Time Travel, Timey-Wimey, doctor who - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-31
Updated: 2012-05-31
Packaged: 2017-11-06 10:24:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/417794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinbutterfly/pseuds/dancinbutterfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Over the course of his life, Gerard Way met a certain Time Lord five different times.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1983

**Author's Note:**

  * For [turlough](https://archiveofourown.org/users/turlough/gifts).



{1983}

“What’s that?” Gerard asks, swinging his father’s hand back and forth, pointing across the street at the big blue box on the side walk.

His father glances over his shoulder and shakes his head. “I’m not sure. New phone booth maybe.”

Gerard stops walking as the door opens and a man in a red coat and a multicolored scarf steps out. His scarf is so long he has it wrapped around him twice and still looks like it might trail on the ground if he isn’t careful. Gerard wants one. He tugs on his father’s hand again. “I want a scarf like that. But with feathers.”

“You’d drag it around and all the feathers would come off,” his father says reasonably. “Besides, you have lots of scarves. Your grandma just made you a new one for Christmas.”

Gerard thinks about this for a long time as he watches the man with the cool scarf scurry away from his blue box, his curly dark hair flying up as he went. He glances over his shoulder once and smiles at Gerard, then winks and waves. He smiles and waves back . Then the man disappears around the corner, his scarf flapping a bit as he goes. 

Gerard looks up at his father and nods. His dad is right. He probably should wait to wear a feathery scarf until he can really take care of it anyway. 


	2. 1999

{1999}

There is a man with a nearly shaved head, rather large ears and a bitching leather coat with a beautiful blond girl in a pink shirt and a hot man in a military coat running across the SVA campus. The hottie who fell out of World War II slams into him and they end up on the grass of the quad, tangled together. The man gives him a wide, toothy grin. "Hello sailor," he says, and he has dimples. Deep dimples and perfect hair.

Gerard reminds himself that he isn't back in Jersey. He's not in high school. He's in art school and it is okay to smile back. "Hello, solider."

"Jack, now's not the time!" calls the blonde, who is British and even prettier when she's pissed, and Gerard is even surer now than he was before he left home that he is very, very bisexual. 

"Now's always the time," Jack calls back, beaming at Gerard. "Captain Jack Harkness," the man says, hopping to his feet and holding out a hand to Gerard.

"Gerard Way."

"Oi, enough of this, yeah? Run now, flirt later?" Big Eared Man says.

"Care to join us? Jack asks and before Gerard can answer, Jack has him by the hand by the hand and they are running full tilt across the campus to the graphic design building. 

"Where're we going?"

"That way?" the oldest in the group says. 

"Any reason why?"

"Because if I'm right, and I'm always right, the Lekorian spawn has been incubating in the subway tunnels beneath that building for the last twenty years and they're ready to hatch and take off into the void of space to head home to their inverted galaxy. In about fifteen minutes. When that happens, the building will explode and take out most of Manhattan, Queens, and a bit of Brooklyn."

"Yeah well it's just Queens," Gerard pants, going for levity because these fuckers are crazy. Extra crazy. 

"I like you Gerard." Jack is glowing at him. It's a nice thing to be on the receiving end of. He could receive a lot more from this guy and not complain. Honestly. 

"You like everyone," the girl laughs.

"People are in general likable," Jack points out. "Dr Grumpy Pants being a downer doesn’t mean I have to be."

"Again. Trying to save America's favorite city over here. Millions of lives. Can we focus just a bit?" the man calls, waving a metal pen looking thing with a shiny blue light at the back door of the graphic design building. 

They end up in the sub-basement. Gerard's an animation major so he didn't even know there was a sub-basement of this building. He didn’t know that the sub-basement has a secret door that opens into the MTA subway tunnels. And he certainly didn’t know there were purple, gelatinous hive-minded tentacle monsters from outer fucking space. It is too young to speak so it gurgles and the man Rose and Jack call The Doctor ("Doctor what?" Gerard had asked. "Just the Doctor," the Doctor called over his shoulder.) talks back to it like its speaking the Queen's freaking English. 

"What's it want?" Gerard whispers.

"It just wants to go home," Rose hisses back. "It's trying to hatch but the space is too small. Its parent thought this was a cave but…"

But it’s an unused subway tunnel. It's small and full of wires and the least nursery-like place Gerard has ever imagined. The Doctor looks around at all of them then holds out his hands. "Make it stay here, all right?"

"How are we supposed to do that?" Gerard asks. Rose shrugs and so does Jack. They turn to the Doctor but by then he's already gone. Having no other ideas, they talk to the purple blobby larval thing for awhile. Rose sits on the edge of the train platform and tells it about her mate Shareen's new boyfriend. Jack tells the blob about the war and _his_ last boyfriend. Gerard paces until his turn to talk when he tells it about the project he's working on for his sophomore animation project and silently seriously considers LSD, like, as a life choice. 

Jack opens his mouth with a story about a pair of triplet acrobats with each with triple matching nipples when a huge blue box whirrs into view. It's hovering just above the purple blobby larva and the Doctor ducks his head out, grinning manically. "Hello! Ride's here."

"What the hell is that?"

"Space ship." Jack says.

"TARDIS," Rose elaborates.

"None of your bloody business," the Doctor declares. He does something with his silver and blue glow stick thing and the massive purple glob larvae is somehow sucked into the big blue box. The big blue box that is not, it should be said, bigger than the big purple globe larvae. 

"Is it bigger on the inside?" Gerard asks.

Rose laughs and kisses his cheek as she skips past him. "It is! Aren't you cute and clever? See you around yeah?"

"What-?"

"She's right." Jack agrees. The kiss he lays on Gerard is not on the cheek. It's on the mouth. With tongue. And teeth. And holy crap, how did he manage to work his hands down the back of Gerard's pants so fast? "You are cute and clever. Be seeing you, sailor."

The pair of them dart in to the space ship, TARDIS, big blue box thing and it starts to disappear. Then it stops. The Doctor's head darts out, big nose and big ears and way too big grin, "You don't want to come do you?"

He can't imagine it, going with them, dropping everything and running off to space. No, actually he can. He can imagine it and he can imagine all the things that could go right, tripping through the stars like every comic book and movie he's ever read and seen and things beyond that. He can also imagine all the things that could go wrong. What he can't imagine, not for the life of him, is what it would be like never to see Mikey or his grandma or his parents again. So he shakes his head and smiles. "I do want to. But I can't."

The Doctor's face falls at that, like it's an answer he's never heard before, never expected. But it only lasts a second before the terrifying, world-illuminating smile is back. "Your loss. See you another time, then," he calls, slamming the door shut behind him.

Gerard stands alone on the platform, watching the most amazing thing he's ever seen vanish right before his eyes. 


	3. 2005

{2005}

There isn’t supposed to be a big blue box in the middle of Bus City. It kind of looks like a mutant outhouse – large and wooden and it looks like it’s built to be stationary. Except for how it’s seriously, like, Nightcrawler blue. 

Gerard stares at it, arms folded over his chest. It's familiar. He’s seen it somewhere before, he remembers it though far more memorable at the moment is the creature that was purple sludge and wiggling tentacles and handsome men who dress like its 1942 like to play assgrab.

He’d go get his sketch book but something niggling in the back of his mind, the little voice that used to warn him before he picked up a drink, tells him to stay. He’s trying hard to listen to that voice more nowadays so he does and about thirty seconds later, the door sings open and a good looking guy in his mid-thirties with messy brown hair that sticks up like it’s full of two-day-old hair gel pops his head out. 

“I’m in Idaho yes?” The man asks, glancing around at the buses. “I can’t tell. These carparks all look the same. Though mind you, that’s part of what’s so brilliant about them. They’re an Earth truth, carparks. All the same everywhere. You always know where you stand with a carpark.” He grins at Gerard. “Well. Usually. Well, actually it’s rather case by case but we’re early twenty-first century right? I should know where I stand with this carpark, if it’s in Idaho.”

“No, sorry. Canada.”

“Canada. Right. Lovely weather for Canada,” the man observes, stepping out of the blue box. He’s got on a dark brown suit and a pair of awesome red Converse that Gerard kind of wants to steal. He makes an odd licking gesture at the air. “Which Canadian carpark?”

“The one behind Thunderbird Stadium,” Gerard says, glancing back at his bus. Frank is trying to climb Bob and that is so much more normal than the misplaced man in front of him. He looks back at the odd man who’d emerged from the strange blue box and does a quick mental status check. He doesn’t feel high. It’s been almost a year so maybe he’s having a nervous breakdown? Things have been good lately so probably not that either. He’d have to go with the hunch that this real then. “What were you looking for in Idaho?”

“Peterlewizkingston. He’s gone from six-hundred-and-seventy-seventh in line to the throne of Wentz Three to acting monarch. He’s late you see. Well, he doesn’t know he needs to be there but as he’s hopefully not the type who likes entire planets getting vaporized in a civil conflict that he could resolve by signing the throne over to his cousin Martinaronkingston, who’s been elected by the general population anyway. I know he’s supposed to be in Idaho. What’s today?” 

Gerard has to think about that. The days kind of run together on tour. “I think it’s Tuesday. I’m not sure. It’s hard to keep track.”

The man gives him an empathetic ‘I know what you mean’ look then shakes his head. “Wait. No. I meant the date.”

“Oh. July twelfth.”

“I need to be in Idaho four days ago,” The man says. He runs a hand through his hair, making it stand up even more. 

He turns to go but Gerard catches him by the sleeve. “Hey, which planet’s going to get vaporized? Earth?”

The man waves a hand. “No, no, not this time. Wentz Three. Interesting planet, charming people. They’re all low-level empaths, which makes them very touchy feely but rather melodramatic. Good skin. Really huge teeth for omnivores of their size,” he says, looking a little distracted. “Anyway, I’ve got a prince to pick up so if I could have my arm back now?”

Gerard’s brain does a few quick jumps as the man speaks, decides to roll with it. “So, you’re telling me Pete Wentz is an alien.” He’s heard Pete called many, many things – lots of them bad, a few of them sex nicknames he really didn’t want to know Mikey could ever dream up. But alien’s not one he’s ever heard before. 

The man lights up. “Oh you know him?”

“Yeah. He’s dating my brother.”

The man stares at him for a long moment then snaps his fingers, his eyes getting wide. “Oh. Yes! Of course! Gerard Way!” He smacks his forehead. “Stupid, I should’ve recognized you. Busy. Busy this time with the revolution, busy last time with the Lekorian spawn. I’m usually much better with faces. I am great with faces. And names. And dates and places. Mostly." He scratches nervously at his eyebrow, looking embarrassed. "Over shot by a bit this time.”

“Have we met?” Gerard asks, letting go of the man’s jacket finally. He’d forgotten he was doing it, he was so caught off guard. He wonders if this is how people feel when he rambles. It sort of puts things in perspective. He really needs to apologize to Ray the next time he sees him. 

“Possibly. I maybe haven’t gotten to it yet. Or, I have and I've changed since then and now and this whole saving a massive space empire is distracting little things like remembering you whether it's happened or will happen, the difference between my then and your then and my now and your now, you know. Complicated. Whether I did or will, I haven’t introduced myself this time. I’m the Doctor.”

“Doctor what?” 

“Just the Doctor,” the Doctor says with a small smile. 

“Just the Doctor,” Gerard repeats, because that, at least, is familiar. He has done this before. He can remember it just, not exactly, and certainly not with this guy. The Doctor was older, late 40s, maybe 50. He was not this young spikey-haired energy ball. "You are not the Doctor. I've met the Doctor and you're not him."

“Yep. I am too. Sorry. My species, we change faces sometimes, so this me Version 10.0 but still. Just the Doctor.”

“Like The Edge?” he prods because the Doctor was a bit of an ass and he owes the guy for leaving him to babble at a ball of alien goo for more than an hour while he, Rose, and Jack tried to keep it calm so that it wouldn’t blow up New York. He has to get a little of his own back now. It's only fair. 

The man’s nose wrinkles a little. “I’m not that pretentious am I? I don’t think I am. Though I suppose I might be but come on.” He rocks back on his heels and smirks. “If I am I carry it off a bit better.”

“Being ‘the’ anything’s kind of pushing it.”

The Doctor rolls his eyes. “Yes well, we can’t all have simple three letter last names can we?” 

Gerard glares and folds his arms over his chest. It’s a matter of family honor now. “Way is a completely normal last name. It’s a great last name.”

“Yes of course it is,” the Doctor says, waving a hand at him dismissively. “So our prince, Pete you called him. They’re always trouble, Petes. Always. At least he’s here. I need to get him to the Ecnadyaced galaxy by three seventeen PM Greenwich Mean Time two days ago and the sooner we leave the sooner we get there.”

“Because he needs to go to with you to an alien planet, in the past.” Gerard folds his arms over his chest. He’s spent a lot of time around some crazy people. He’s usually game. But the Doctor definitely isn’t tour staff so he can't go running around Bus City scaring people and he doesn’t sound like he’s kidding. Pete attracts some pretty insane fans and for Mikey’s sake, Gerard feels compelled to be protective. “I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to be in this area. I mean, do you even have a pass to be back here?”

The Doctor makes an irritated noise and pulls out a leather wallet, flips it open and holds it out to Gerard. He takes it and stares. It’s the guy, naked and sprawled between himself, Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness, and, yeah, that’s definitely Bob. Right. Okay. That’s…hot. Gerard feels his face flush.

“Dude, no offense but showing me photoshopped porn of yourself with me and my drummer and the couple you brought with you last time, you know, when you had the big ears. That's not going to help you stay incognito. It’s pretty fucking good photoshopping though. Wow. It looks almost real.”

The paper’s snatched from his hands with a curse. “Oi, get your filthy mind off my psychic paper,” he grits out. "And see, we have met! You know Rose Tyler and Jack. Dirty old bastards the both of you." He says the last bit fondly. 

“I don’t shower very often,” Gerard agrees. “It’s seriously psychic?”

“Of course you’re more sharply tuned,” he practically groans. Then he shakes his head and says briskly, “Right, slightly psychic paper. Shows you what you’re supposed to see and as you’re a little bit more psychically skilled than most humans, the paper took what you wanted to see rather than what you were expecting to see, which was apparently rather naughty. You and your friend should probably talk if you haven’t already but all that can wait until after you let me talk to Pete.”

“Wait, so I’m psychic?”

“Not really. The paper’s psychic. You’re just difficult.”

“I’ve been told that before. I prefer to go with interesting. Or artistic. That’s a good one too.”

“Save me from the moderately talented types. Pete. Where? Now. Come on man, there’s an entire civilization at stake here. Do you really want to be the man who destroyed an entire species by not telling me where a bloody pop star is?”

Gerard gapes at him for a moment. He thinks that Pete would take offense at the whole “pop” thing but that doesn’t seem very important at the moment. He points across the parking lot with a hand that doesn’t feel like its his anymore. “Fall Out Boy bus.”

“Fantastic. Thanks ever so. Be seeing you then. Cheers.” He wiggles his fingers at Gerard then takes off at a run. 

Gerard shakes his head and heads back to his bus. He can’t find his cigarettes and he’s suddenly in desperate need of a smoke. And a drink but he’s not thinking about that. He’s thinking about his burning throat and how his brother seems to be fucking an alien. He steals a couple of Frank’s cigarettes first and heads back to the blue box. 

He gets there in time to watch the Doctor drag a tripping Pete across the parking lot, Mikey hot on their heels. Gerard flicks ash on the ground as the Doctor flings the door open and yanks Pete in and slams the door behind him just in time for Mikey to crash into the wood with his full weight as his momentum beats his ability to break.

Gerard gets halfway to his brother as he falls back on his ass before the strange whirring sound begins. And then he’s stuck frozen in a crouch as the box turns transparent, fades, and disappears. 

“So he wasn’t lying about Pete then,” Gerard murmurs.

Mikey, on the other hand, shoves himself to his feet and glares at the now empty space. “Motherfuck. I’m going to have to fill in for him tonight. Awesome. Patrick’s going to kill me.”

Not sure what to say to that, Gerard holds out his half-gone cigarette. Mikey flicks him a small grateful look and takes it from him, inhaling in a long harsh drag, blowing grey smoke up at the sky. Then he holds out a hand and pulls Gerard to his feet.

There’s a long moment of strained silence as they walk back towards the My Chem bus. Then Gerard bumps Mikey’s shoulder with his own and says, “So you’re banging ET, huh?”

“Dude, shut up.” Mikey sighs. But he’s smiling a little. 

Pete is back before the buses have to roll out with no sign of the Doctor or his blue box. He looks tired and he’s got some sort of weird purple goo in his hair that smells like lavender and motor oil and a large bruise on his wrist. Patrick yells at him for a solid hour for making him be frontman without any fucking warning and according to Mikey, Pete just grins at him and takes it. 

So Gerard figures things are pretty much back to normal. He keeps an eye out for blue boxes though because at some point he’s supposed to meet the Doctor again, for his second or first time. Maybe, he thinks as he glances over his shoulder on stage and back at Bob hammering on the drums, he wants to be ready if he’s the one caught by the wrist and dragged inside. 


	4. 2008

{2008}

Gerard opens the door with Bandit on his hip expecting, maybe, the UPS guy. He ordered more Prismacolor pencils because, well, he goes through them the way most people go through potato chips and while it's fun to go to the art supply store, since the baby it's just more efficient to buy online. Especially with MSI on tour and Lindsey trusting him alone with Bandit. Finally. 

There's a grinning man on the other side of the door, dressed in a tweed suit with a bow tie and very floppy hair. He's positively beaming, fingers wiggly, eyes alight. "Ah, hello there Gerard. You look better these days. Let me in will you? There's a good lad." 

Okay. British. That's…interesting and familiar. "Can I help you?"

"Need to pop round, see your attic. Intense peritreca radiums coming from the vicinity." Bandit makes a gurgling noise and waves a hand. "No, I know he's not," the British man agrees with a sigh, clearly speaking directly to Gerard's baby. "But what can you do? They can only do so much with what they've been given can't they?"

"I'm sorry but who the hell are you and what are you doing in my house?"

"Sorry, new face. I forget sometimes. I'm the Doctor."

"The Doctor." Gerard repeats, tightening his grip on Bandit. She makes a few noises of protest but he ignores them because there is a crazy person in his house claiming to be an equally crazy alien with a magical blue box space ship who he hasn’t seen in nearly half a decade. 

"Yes. The Doctor. Oh Doctor who? Can we skip that bit and just let me get up to the attic? That'd be much faster."

"How do I know you're the Doctor?"

"Because the last time I saw you I stole your brother's emo bassist alien prince boyfriend off to prevent a war. Now. Attic? Bit quickly please?"

"Oh." That part wasn't exactly wrong. "Well. Okay."

Bandit claps her hands happily and gurgles. She seems to approve of him.

The Doctor points a finger at him. "See? Melissandriana agrees with me."

"Who is Melissandriana?"

At this the Doctor sighs and waves a hand through the air dismissively. "The baby."

"Her name is Bandit."

"Bandit," the Doctor repeats, his eyes wide like dinner plates. "Like the sort of person who sneaks through the night and nicks valuables from people bandit?"

Gerard squeezes his daughter closer. "Your name is the Doctor."

"That's not my given name. Everyone calls me the Doctor. I picked it, it's lovely. Doctors heal people, fix what's broken, cure diseases, mend the sick but my parents did not look at me when I was all tiny and squishy and soft and say 'oh he looks like a doctor, let's name him that'. I knew a bloke, everyone called him The Brigadier. It's a title, not his name. She doesn't think she looks like a Bandit. She agrees with me. She much prefers Melissandriana and if you need to give her a title she likes Queen of Kittenglitterbubblerainbow Land."

Bandit cooes in his arms and Gerard tries not to panic. He's not doing very well. Lindsey would be very smug if she could see him right now. "You are a crazy person."

The Doctor sticks his finger in Gerard's face so close to his nose that Gerard's eyes cross looking at it. "I did not name my baby after someone who steals things." 

"How do you even know what she thinks?"

The Doctor beams at him. He pulls his hand away to straighten his bowtie. "I speak Baby."

"You say that like it’s a thing. Baby isn't a language."

The Doctor looks positively affronted. "It is so a thing. Isn't it Melissandriana?"

Bandit makes a lot of noises at him and gurgles. She then chews on her hand for a moment before pulling it out with a wet popping sound.

"See? She agrees with me," The Doctor declares, strolling around the house as if it were his own. Gerard follows him, Bandit still happily bouncing in his arms, half afraid the Doctor will blow up a couch or something if he's not supervised. "Your daughter says that UnMommy, that's you by the way, is often completely wrong, always dropping things, and giving her sweet potato babyfood even though she doesn’t like it as evidenced by the fact that she throws it at you." He pauses, spins on his heel to stare at Gerard who has has been scurrying after his coattails like a desperate puppy. The Doctor gives Gerard a studying look. "She also says that you do try rather hard so she's giving you a pass for not letting her ride Sarah Michelle like a pony." The Doctor glances at the kitchen with a skeptical eye. "I'm going to assume Sarah Michelle is the dog."

Gerard can feel his brows furrowing. "Yeah. I'm UnMommy?"

"Don’t be too hurt. Babies are notoriously frank. They grow out of it. I'm FloppyHair and I'm told there's a StickerNeck man who frequents the house as well who she'd like very much to finger paint on if you could help her make that happen."

StickerNeck has to be Frank. There's no one else he could be. Gerard is still stinging over the whole UnMommy thing but he wants to see Frank covered in finger paints bad enough that he's starting to not care. 

The Doctor continues uninterrupted. "Honestly, though, who names their child after thieves and their dog after the girl who played Buffy the Vampire Slayer?" He snorts and rolls his eyes. "And people say my priorities are skewed. They should meet you."

"You travel around in a big blue box and are a guest in my house, dude. No judging."

Bandit makes a few choice noises.

"Thank you. I quite like blue myself," the Doctor tells her, ignoring Gerard all together. Then he laces his fingers together, cracks them all at once and turns to Gerard. "So. Attic. Point me in the right direction before the peritreca radiums deep fry your dog with the disturbingly human name." 

"My attic is deep frying my family?"

"Oh lord, no. Probably just the dog. And if she's anything like her namesake I'm sure she's fine."

"Great. Comforting."

Gerard waves a feeble hand at the back of the house and the Doctor takes off at a run because that’s what he does. He runs. Gerard looks down at Bandit and she looks up at him. "You wanna do this?" he asks his daughter, as if speaking Baby is a real thing, as if she can understand him, as if her laughing and clapping counts as enough of a yes to take off after the Doctor at a run of his own.


	5. 2043

{2043}

There is a stunning Indian woman in her in her mid-twenties standing in his living room wearing a full sari in glorious pink and orange that makes her caramel skin and straight shoulder-length black hair glow. She has her long fingernails painted a shade of blue that will forever remind Gerard of the TARDIS. The hands said fingernails are attached to are planted on her hips as she stares at Gerard while he sits with his feet resting on his coffee table and his TV on, very clear disdain writ clear across her lovely face. One foot, covered in a pair of matching orange Nike high-top sneakers, is tapping on the very same coffee table, very impatiently. 

Gerard sighs and looks up at her. "Who the hell are you? And how did you get onto my coffee table?"

"Gerard, honestly love, you've got to stop greeting me like this," she declares in perfect English. Posh public school English without a hint of slang. "Because the next bit is getting old. Oh, you've got a new face? You're a woman now? The Doctor is a man! The Doctor? Doctor What? Doctor Who? You can't be here!" She sighs and shakes her head sending her hair flying. Then she smiles, perfect white teeth almost feral looking. Okay, now he's a little afraid of her. She looks happy but also like she could take a bite out of something he would really miss. "How cool is that though? This regeneration has the greatest hair. Still not ginger, I'm starting to think I'll never get ginger, but bloody hell, it does flip brilliantly." She proves the point by flipping the hair over her shoulder with a blue painted hand.

"You’re the Doctor." Gerard says because, well, what else do you say? 

"Ah, so you were listening. Lovely. I say that now. Lovely. Been through fantastic, bananas, brilliant, allons-y, Geronimo, clever, bowties, fezes. For the latest version of me? Lovely. Gentler, cleaner, but no less effective. Also? I have breasts this time round. Those are also lovely." She smiles at him and she has dimples, deep ones, several sets. 

"One of these days? You will tell me how all of this works."

"No I won't," she says with a grin. "Now, up you get. We've places to do, things to be. You know, the same old, same old."

"What, no exploding baby monsters under my feet or poison alien rays in my attic?" Gerard frowns at her. It's entirely possible that getting old has made him grouchy. He is a sixty something grouchy former rock star who is arguing with a ex-male now-female alien who is probably a time traveler. 

"No no no. There's a revolt on Deletegio 82 and they're using your music as their manifesto to destroy their elders, who by the way, aren’t even doing anything wrong. They don’t even live on the same planet. The middle aged live on Deletegio 83 and the old live on Deletegio live on 84. Visitation is allowed of course but it keeps things orderly." She sighs and throws her hands up in the air. He really does dig the nail polish. He wants to know where she got the color. The Horsehead Nebula probably. "This is why everyone needs to stop transmitting music into space. The Beatles are all well and good and I love Nirvana just as much as the next person but people take things the wrong way, even down here. Just look at Charles Manson and that bloke who shot John Lennon. And it's not just humans you know. Everyone seems to think it’s a good idea and, well, it is, but it's also rather not. Anyway, I need you to come tell them that Teenagers is not actually an excuse for them to raze D-83 to the ground. They'll listen to you."

"You're serious." He laughs a little. He can't help it. He feels like he's fall into Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. "You know Wyld Stallyns aren't going to really save the future right?"

"Of course they're not. Your music is actually good whereas theirs is complete rubbish and anyway my phone box is much, much nicer than Rufus's. Gerard," she sighs. "When are you going to learn that I am always bloody serious about these sorts of things? Now," She kicks his loafer-covered with the rubber toe of her sneaker. "Get up off the couch, come outside to where I've parked the TARDIS and come stop the good teenagers of Deletegio 82 from killing their parents and grandparents, yeah?"

Gerard raises a brow. "Are the children on 81?"

"And the infants are on 80. Yes, you're very clever. Cleverest kitten in the entire box."

Gerard chuckles and shakes his head. He should be used to this sort of lunacy, all sorts of lunacy in fact. He lived his life with Frank and Mikey and Ray. He married Lindsey Ballato. He raised Bandit. He, on occasion, ran into a mad alien whose space ship took the form of a big blue box. But he never got used to it. He probably never will. "You do know I'm old right?"

The Doctor seems thoroughly unimpressed but this argument. "You're in your sixties now aren’t you?"

"Sixty-six."

"Still young then."

"No, you're young. And getting younger every freaking time I see you. Does your species age backwards or something?"

"Please. There was awhile in your thirties when I thought _you_ were the one aging backwards. I'm twelve-thousand-three-hundred-fifteen years old. You are an infant. Now mind your elders, get off your arse, and save some lives. That's the whole point of your bloody life's work isn't it?"

She isn't wrong, damn her. He sighs and looks around his house. It's empty. Lindsey's in Canada working on a large scale metal art instillation in a national park and will be for the next two months. Bandit's job's on the other side of the country but she always comes home for Christmas. He can't miss that. Not even for a revolt on Deletegio 82. "We've got to be back by October 24th. Lindsey gets back on the 25th."

The Doctor grits her teeth and clicks her tongue. She looks nervous, chagrined even. "Ah. About that."

"What about that?" Gerard asks, eyes narrowed. 

"The TARDIS doesn’t always get dates exactly right."

"Oh she doesn't, does she?"

"No. But that’s why you always leave a note! I learned my lesson after what happened with Rose." She nods as if that solves everything but it most certainly doesn’t. Gerard's memories of Rose are hazy, they're a lifetime ago, but he doesn't know much about her or what happened to her, only that she'd been pretty and friendly and taken almost everything in stride. 

"You promise me we get back before my wife or I'm not going," Gerard says, not even moving to get off the couch. Family first. He decided that years ago, when his first doctor, the one with the big ears, and the crooked nose and the leather jacket, stuck his head out to invite him aboard. Family first, over traveling through space, over the band, over it all. He's a Way, and that means something. It means everything. 

This Doctor sighs, one of the hands on her hips moving to rake through her hair then rub at her temples. Then she pinches the bridge of her nose. "Fine. Fine. Save me from stubborn humans. Now get off that bloody couch and get your arse in my TARDIS before I pick you up and make you."

Gerard grins at her and jumps up because, if he's honest, he's been waiting. He's been waiting his whole fucking life for this. He's been waiting to be free. He's been waiting to have time. He's been waiting for the band to be over, for his baby girl to be grown, for his wife, the love of his life and the only person he's ever wanted to spend his whole life with, to have something to fill her time with so that he could take a small chunk of time for his own to tear through space with this strange being who's been popping in and out of his life through the years. 

The Doctor holds out her hand and wiggles her fingers. Once Gerard's on his feet, he doesn't walk to the TARDIS. He takes her smooth young hand in his old wrinkled one and they run.

(end)


End file.
